> Twistclops
>  by shortskirtsandexplosions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Part One:  Cinnamonstrosity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        “So, as you can see, children...” Ms. Cheerilee spoke as she flipped a large poster board before the Ponyville classroom, displaying a hovering cloud of pastel colored miniature equines. “From a combination of famine, genetic deficiency, and an overabundance of natural predators, the very last remnant of the flutterpony civilization died nearly three thousand five hundred years ago. Thus ended the legacy of a noble class of equines whom Starswirl the Bearded himself described as, and I quote: ‘really damn stupid.’”

        The young foals in attendance would have listened, only most of them were too preoccupied with keeping their listless eyes open while simultaneously avoiding headbutts with their shiny, drool-slick desktops. There was one jubilant exception, however. A bright-bright soul sat up straight like a pale shadow glinting in the middle of the lethargic group. With a rambunctious squeal, she rocked back and forth in her tiny chair, waving a hoof like she was dramatically swatting an invisible swarm of bees.

        “Any questions?” Cheerilee’s eyes swam over the group, the redheaded foal, the rest of the group, and back. “Any questions whatsoever?”

        “Oh! Oh! Mith Cheerilee! Right here! Right here!” the filly within the nucleus of the classroom blurted like an asthmatic assault rifle.

        The ruby red corner of Cheerilee’s muzzle twitched. Keeping a geometrically perfect smile intact, the mare swiveled her expression until it reflected doubly across the exuberant foal’s glossy, thick spectacles. “Ahem. Yes, Twist?”

        “Squee!” Twist squee’d. She sat back and folded her forelimbs in a prim and proper fashion while uttering, “If the flutterponieth had wingth, and the pegathi have wingth, then how come the flutterponieth are dead and the pegathi are not?”

        “Uhm... well, it doesn’t quite have anything to do with the ponies’ wings, Twist,” Cheerilee said, her voice cracking as she rounded each awkward corner of verbal syntax, avoiding eyesight with the foal’s pale face at every swivel of her head. “There isn’t necessarily a correlation between their flight and their extinction. Much rather, a combination of environmental hazards and natural competition is to blame for their disappearance from the face of Equestria. If you had listened to the lesson just now—”

        “Or maybe they couldn’t hold onto their cooking theethts!”

        Cheerilee blinked. “Buh?” the adult buh’d.

        “With tiny gothamer wingth, how can you carry any sort of baking utenthilth?!” Twist smiled proudly, as if she had just immaculately conceived the pony messiah. “Thometimeth, when the kitchen ditheth aren’t wathed in time for Thaturday Night Baking, I juth feel like thlitting my writhth! That’th jutht like extinthion, right?”

        “Fyeeeeughhhhuuuu,” was all Scootaloo had to say before colliding her forehead with the edge of her desk and making love to the wooden finish.

        “Uhm...” Cheerilee’s eyes bounced across the foalishly decorated walls of the room before she ultimately jerked with a spastic grin. “Oh! Would you listen to that? That’s the bell, my little ponies!”

        Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle collectively hopped up in their seats. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon exchanged numb glances.

        From behind her thick-thick glasses, Twist bore a confused expression. “What? But the bell doethn’t ring for another two hourth!”

        “Oh, uhm... sure it does!” Cheerilee gritted her teeth, sweated, and reached over for the Equestrian flag. She yanked the banner off, hoisted the pole over her shoulder like a spear, and launched it violently into the ceiling. A loud crunching noise echoed across the room, followed by the liberal spray of plaster and mortar. At last, the schoolhouse tower imploded overhead, and the huge hulking bell plunged down from above, crushing the edge of Cheerilee’s desk, resonating with a prophesied gonggg! “See? School’s over for the day!” Cheerilee sing-song’d, her eyes as wide as her teeth. “So long, Twist... and class. But mostly just Twist.”

        The room clamored with clopping noises as everypony still alive got up, gathered their saddlebags, and made hastily for the exit. Twist blinked, sitting absolutely still within the retreating maelstrom of young pony life.

        “Huh... funny... that’th the third time thith month Cheerilee let uth out early after I athked about the lethhon.” Her eyes blinked like magnified pink headlights, and she shrugged. “Oh well! If the clatth ith happy, then tho am I!” She got up and smirked rosily to the nearest table. “Ithn’t that right, Thilver Thpoon?”

“Don’t talk to me, you walking raspberry stain.”

“Hee hee hee!” Twist smiled a crescent moon. “Thilly pony! Rathpberrieth don’t attend clathhroomth!”






T W I S T C L O P S







        A cool spring breeze blew through the schoolyard as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon trotted down the front steps of the school building. They talked snobbishly over the sounds of giggling, playing foals on either side of them, happy to have the rest of the day to scamper and play.

        “I swear, elementary school is such a waste of my time!” Diamond Tiara grunted with a roll of her eyes. She punctuated her terse speech with dainty girlsteps across the springy grass. “Once you get your cute-ceañera, it’s nothing but a lame waiting game until high school... then college...”

        “What’s after college?” Silver Spoon asked.

        “Pffft. How should I know?” Diamond frowned into the afternoon sunlight. “My dad’s always going on and on about something really miserable... some stuff called the ‘ninety-nine percent!’”

        “Oooh! I love numbers!” Silver Spoon said with a little bounce. “I could marry one, it'd be the number 'three,' cuz then it could hug me all day!”

        Diamond Tiara glared daggers at her. “Sometimes, I wonder which way the spoon is bent with you.”

        “Huh?”

        “Did your great grandmother—like—swallow a bunch of polluted seagulls when she fell off the boat at Manehattan harbor?”

        “Neigh York! Ooooh! I love Neigh York!” Twist chirped, suddenly hopping down the steps so that her portly self was sandwiched forcibly between the two gawking fillies. “Hey, have you two girlth ever been to Thaten Island? That’th where they caught the Clopthey Killer!”

        “Eeeeyugh...” Silver Spoon groaned, trying her darndest not to plow her drooping expression into the dirt.

        “What?!” Twist frowned. “He wath a bad thtallion! He worked at thuper evil thanitarium until Giraldoath thhut the plathe down!”

        “Twist, just because you like talking a lot in class doesn’t mean you have to talk anywhere—like—close to my ears,” Diamond Tiara muttered. “You know, the ears on my head, far away from your mouth?”

        “Well, if I talked thomewhere clothe to your bellybutton, thomepony might get the wrong idea!”

        “Listen, girl,” Silver Spoon sputtered, glaring at her through the corner of her wide-framed glasses. “You’re into sweets, right?”

        “Am I ever!”

        “Why don’t you drink a tall glass of buzz the heck off?!”

        “Yeah!” Diamond Tiara choked on a snicker. “With extra lemon!” She and Silver Spoon bumped rumps. “Chhyeah! Celestia, we own this town!”

        “Heehee! Own it like a two bit horse!”

        “Heheheheh...” Diamond Tiara blinked and went deadpan. “I don't get it.”

        Meanwhile, Twist was frowning, more out of confusion than anything else. Her round eyes went rounder behind quivering lenses. “I don't get it! You guyth and I never hang out anymore!”

        “We never—like—hung out ever!” Diamond Tiara grunted. “In fact, the only time we’re likely to hang out with the likes of you ever is if changelings take over and swing us from the gallows!”

        “Oooh! I love thwingthetth! I can totally do a backflip if I’ve got two ponieth to puthh me!” Twist bounced and grinned and bounced. “Thoooo... when do you guyth wanna do it?”

        “Hmmmm...” Diamond Tiara smirked in the direction of Silver Spoon. “I’m thinking on the first Saturday of Buckcember.”

        “Heehee... yes...” Silver Spoon winked back. “Right after recess, at 11:75pm.”

        “Huh...” Twist skidded to a stop, scratching her double chins in thought. “I’ve never heard of that month... or even theventy-five minuteth in an hour!”

        “That's because... uhhh... Princess Celestia just invented them!” Silver Spoon said with a phantom light bulb over her gray head.

        “Yes!” Diamond Tiara rang forth as the two marched on without the redhead. “Just like she invented the leap day you were born on! Which makes you zero years old! That’s—like—not even negative baby!”

        “Well, okay!” Twist smiled nervously, digging her lonesome hoof into the ground as she watched them trot ahead. “I’ll meet you two at that time, then! Tho long as Printheth Thelethtia declareth it!”

        Once the two uppity fillies were out of the four-eyed pony's earshot, they exhaled heavily. “Whew! Thought we’d never get rid of that talking radish,” Silver Spoon whispered to Diamond. “So, what do you want to do today?”

        ‘Well, like I said earlier, I’m sick of waiting to grow older,” Diamond grunted. She tilted her haughty head up with a devilish smirk. “I know just the thing to find out exactly how pretty and popular I’m going to be years from now.”

        Silver Spoon’s pink eyes darted back and forth like ocular ping pong balls. “You’re going to pay respects to the Griffon Triad?”

        “Huh? What?!” Diamond gave her a gawking expression. “No!” She smiled. “I’m going to the Everfree Forest. I hear there’s a zebra shaman living there who’ll tell your fortune for twenty bits!”

        “I’d be careful about that...” Silver Spoon shivered as she said, “All I know about zebras is that they rhyme a lot and always carry shivs with them.”

        “Silver Spoon! That’s so equinist!”

        “But that’s what my dad says!”

        “Your dad couldn’t buy his way out of a paper bag in the middle of a rain shower.  With hungry possums circling around from the bulwarks!” Diamond Tiara cleared her throat as she guided the two of them towards the hazy green line of Everfree in the distance. “Now, if you wanna be cool, then you’re gonna escort me there so I won’t look stupid going alone.”

        “Escorts...” Silver Spoon thought aloud as the two left the edge of the schoolyard. “That’s another thing my dad keeps complaining about. Apparently they’re super expensive.”

        “You’re super expensive. Now let’s go.”

        Across the front yard, several feet away, three foals were gathering around a bright scooter and an even brighter wagon affixed to the rear.

        “A shovel cutie mark, huh?” Scootaloo grinned back at her friends as she strapped on her helmet.

        “Yeah!” Apple Bloom pumped her hoof and grinned from where she squatted in the wagon alongside Sweetie Belle. “First, we earn our talents, and then we can rake in gold for the rest of our lives!”

        “I don’t get it,” Sweetie Belle squeaked with a confused look to her face. “What do shovels have to do with gold?”

        “Hay if I know.” Apple Bloom shrugged. “I was just listenin’ to my sister talk about yer sister one night, and sayin’ that on account of all the gifts stallions are givin’ Rarity during her visits to Canterlot, she should be sportin’ a shovel made of gold on her flank!”

        “Heehee, yeah—Hey!” Sweetie Belle’s giggle fractured into a growl as she frowned at her companions. “Somehow, I think that was supposed to be mean!”

        “Will it matter once you’re drownin’ in showers of gold?”

        Sweetie Belle scratched the surface of the sky with her eyes, then shrugged. “Nope! Shovels it is!” She pumped her hoof with a jubilant grin. “Let’s get to digging!”

        “Yeeehaa!”

        “I feel like I've heard this joke before,” Scootaloo muttered. Then, with a lazy shrug, she fastened her helmet tight and bucked at the ground beneath her scooter. “Oh well, you only scoot once. Cutie Mark Crusader Shovel Knights!”

        “Yaaaaaaaay—”

        Just then, an obese deer with a fluffy red mane and a peppermint strip cutie mark frolicked out into the middle of the road in front of them. “Thhovel Knightth!”  Thud.  “Thpectacular! Can I dig for golden thhowerth too?!”

        “Gaaaah!” Scootaloo swerved, jerking her scooter hard and grunting as the wagon caught up and bumped into her lower limbs. “Ow ow ow ow... Gosh darn it, Twist, you... smelly... uhm... mole cricket!”

        “Even better!” Twist beamed. “Mole cricketth are good at digging trencheth, right?”

        “Uhm...” Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom exchanged nervous glances as each of the three crusaders fidgeted, avoiding the sight of the spritely pale organism in front of them.

“Come on! I’ll make it worth your while!” Twist leaned forward, winking, before performing tiny little jumps of joy around the fillies and their wagon. Mounds of sand shook from the tiny tremors that were produced. “I’ll tell you awethome thtorieth the whole time! Like thith one time an oven blew up in my fathe! Or how my father got his parole! Or how I developed an incurable denim jeanth phobia!”

        “Denim... jeans...?” Scootaloo dripped.

        “What?” Twist beamed blissfully. “They ride up the plot like nopony'th buthinethh!”

“Yeah, uhhhm, about our crusading...” Sweetie Belle nervously smiled. “This is kind of a blank flank thing, Twist...”

        The four-eyed pony stood in place and blinked. “Oh?”

        “Yeah...” Apple Bloom smiled sweetly. “It’s nice of you to be all helpful and stuff, but we’re fixin’ to get our cutie marks from this, and... uhm... gul-durn it...”

        “You’d suck up the cutie karma with your tattooed butt!” Scootaloo grunted.

        “Yeah!” Sweetie Belle nodded. “What she said!” She instantly blushed. “Though... maybe a little less gross-gross.”

        “Meh,” Scootaloo meh’d.

        “Oh... well...” Twist smiled nervously as she dug a hoof through the pliable edges of the dirt road. “That maketh a whole lot of thenthe...”

        “Really?” Apple Bloom blurted with a raised eyebrow.

        “Good enough for me!” Scootaloo’s wings instantly started blurring, and soon she and the wagon soared over the hill like a scarlet missile. “Gold ain’t gonna shower itself!”

        “See ya later, Twist!” Apple Bloom waved dramatically from the madly speeding vehicle. “Don’t worry! We’ll hang out another time! Isn’t that right, Sweetie Belle?!”

        “I have bugs in my teeth!”

        The sound of their voices dwindled in the distance. Twist coughed as the dust following their exit settled. She waved into the sloping horizon and spoke to everypony and nopony all at once. “Well... well, we can thertainly rethchedule! Okay?” She stood with a smile locked in the center of her face. “Guyth?” Interminable silence lurched by like a funeral dirge across a river of molasses. “Thuper!”

        The filly turned around, finding the schoolyard utterly vacant. A tumbleweed may or may not have been possessed with the ambivalent need to roll by.

        “Anypony elthe wanna hang out?” Her voice echoed into the far reaches of buzzard-space, unanswered. “We could do thome thweet baking!” Her grinning teeth reflected the open void. “Maybe even roll thome thinnamon thwirlth?!”

        A few crickets, woken from their daytime slumber, spontaneously began chirping several hours early. She finally took it as a clue.

        “Well, alright! I guethh I’ll be trotting on home!” Twist waddled about. “Alone!” She twitched and twitched until her ears drooped on their lonesome. “...again..”

        She walked the space of about ten meters until she actually came upon movement. Gasping, she slapped her grin back on in time to greet two coltish figures.

        “Thnipth! Thnailth!” She waved ardently as the two stallions-to-be trotted by. “Wanna go tothh a batheball?!”

        “Go jump off a cliff, Twist,” Snips yawned.

        “Yeahhh...” Snails belched. “Crawl back into your mother’s womb and pull a Silvia Plot! Heheh!”

        They both trotted away, becoming a pair of testosteronical dots along the distant horizon.

        Twist looked after them, her grin unceasing.

        “Tho is that a ‘yeth?’”










        Across town, inside a blissfully air-conditioned confectionery...

        “And that's when the glass ladder of oligarchical musical hierarchy fell on my horn like all the piled-up regrets of this starving universe,” Lyra droned, frazzled and bleary-eyed as she stood before the counter with a bag of bottles slumped over her flank. “The head of the music theory research department fired me like a sack of rotten meat, and I've been festering within the dark recesses of my apartment ever since. Over the last few days, the city has cut both my power and water. My landlady tells me that I have less than twenty-four hours to move my bony carcass out of the third floor, or else she's going to start calling the repo ponies, or worse: the dog catcher.”

        With a grunt, Bon Bon lifted a carton of sloshing red liquid onto the counter and bagged it with a glinting smile. “Whew! Well, look on the bright side! At least the weather is good!”

        “Pearlescent blue, like the jaded edges of my soul once were,” Lyra murmured. “Drowning me in the depths of remorseful truth, to which I have been blind and naked all this time.” She vomited a pair of bits onto the counter and limply lifted the bag of cartons onto her backside with limp teleknesis. “My dreams, my aspirations, like an ocean of plankton before the gaping maw of a soulless leviathan of fate and—”

        “Whew!” Bon Bon fluffed her mane and chuckled. “You poetic ponies are always way over my head! But hey, whatever floats your boat!”

        “Like a splintery wooden ferry caught adrift in a tempestuous monsoon of purple waves and—”

        “Yup! Sounds like a great song already!” Bon Bon squinted. “Curious, though, how will three bottles of arsenic and a huge carton of fruit punch assist in the lyric-writing process?”

        “Oh, you know...” Lyra shuffled around, trotting liquidly out the door. “...magic.”

        “Heehee! You bet!” Bon Bon wave. “Good luck with your brain juices, Miss Heartstrings! Have a great afternoon!”

        “Good bye.”

        The bell rang before Lyra could reach the door. Twist trotted in, bouncing between each springy step. “Hello, Mitth Heartthringth! How are the thtringth plucking today? Hmm?”

        “We are born from death and we return to it, whimpering.”

        “Thoundth thuper! Lemme know when you have a new record out!” As Lyra disappeared into the ether, Twist rolled up to the desk, grinning like the peppermint bowling ball that she was. “Thweet tidingth, Mithh Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon! Heehee! I jutht made a rhyme!”

        “Oh... uhm...” Bon Bon's smile fractured like Stone Colt Steave Oatsen's neck vertebrae after a botched piledriver. “Hello... you...”

        “My daddy and older thithter thay that you can't make a rhyme by blatantly repeating thingth.” Twist's lips made a raspberry as she smiled proudly. “They obviouthly never lithtened to Radiohay!”

        “Is there something I can get you...” Bon Bon twitched before drooling, “...t-to do outside of my store?”

        “Thilly filly! I can't buy thugar candieth from you outthide your thtore! Funny, you make the thame joke every day that I thtop by!”

        “Yeah... the s-same joke,” Bon Bon said, her pleasant voice unraveling like a kitten's intestines as she fidgeted behind the counter. “Are you actually going to buy something today, y-you?”

        “Funny that you thould athk that!” Twist reached deep into her saddlebag.

        “I'm afraid I'm all out of floor lint today...”

        “Look what I got!” Twist lifted a pair of bits littered with red splatters. “Snipth and Snailth bet me during recetth that I couldn't take a buck to the fathe! Well, turnth out I could take two... and three... and even five!” Twist's head jerked slightly as one eyebrow twitched above the other. “It hurt at firtht, but after the theventh punch, it wathn't tho bad! Now it only hurtth in the part of my brain that rememberth vintage grunge songth!” She grinned, then suddenly spasmed from head to heel. “Unnnngh... 'Rein Me.' Why did 'In Uteroatth' have to be thooooo pretentiouth? Ow ow ow ow...”

        “Wow...” Bon Bon's pupils shrank as she stared disdainfully at the pair of splattered golden coins. “That's a lot of blood...” She gulped. “And mucus.”

        “Hahahaha... yeah.” Twist smiled. She smiled some more. With a jerk, she said, “Tho, how much for the thinnamon thwirlth? I'll take two thtickth, pleathe!”

        “Uhhh... uhm...”

        “Thothe two, right there on the counter, right in front of you, Mithh Bon Bon...”

        “Yes... allow me to... get them...” Bon Bon smiled. She then turned, galloped, and dove straight out the window. Blood and glass shattered across the floor, casting the confectionery into grim silence beneath a rotating ceiling fan.

        After a few seconds, Twist blinked, then leaned forward. “Do the thinnamon thwirlth come with a free mint?”

        Silence.

        Twist swooped up both sticks and a grasped a piece of green candy in a happy hoof.

        “Thankth!” She trotted gaily through the front door.

        Stepping out of Bon Bon's candy's shop, Twist entered Ponyville's Main Street. A mother and her foal trotted by. Upon first sight of the filly, the mare gasped, hugged her child dearly, and dove into a dirty alleyway with a clatter of garbage cans. Granny Smith slipped past, writhing in the shadows, until she found a strategic horse trough to dunk her wrinkly head in. A barking squirrel darted across the dirt road, barely avoiding an oncoming stagecoach. Once it saw Twist, the rodent’s tail went stiff, and it crawled robotically back to the curb, lying itself in the path of the incoming wagon wheels.

        The resulting crunch sound was fatefully masked by Twist taking a heavy bite out of her cinnamon sticks. “Mmmm... mmmm—now thith ith the life!” She smiled between powdery suckles. “Jutht like my big thith thayth! Nothing better than a thweet, thick thtick to thuck on!” Her four eyes blinked bulbously across the street. Just as a lavender shade glinted off her glasses, she snorted, gasped, and bounced up and down, waving. “Printhethh! Printhethh Twilight Thparkle! Felithitathionth!”

        “...so in conclusion,” Twilight said while trotting across the sidewalk in her crown, “I learned that you can make friends with just about anypony in Saddle Arabia, so long as you attend at least one public castration.”

        “Hey! Heyyyy, Printheth! Over here! With the thinnamon and the thmileth!”

        Trailing Twilight with his claws dragging a pen across a scroll, Spike looked up. He instantly blanched at the tuft of red fluff bounding towards them. “Oh crap crackers on turd toast.”

        “Spike!” Twilight hissed back at the whelp. “Please, I'm dictating here! And what have I told you about defecation jokes on a Tuesday?”

        “Yeah, but look who's trotting up—”

        “I'm a princess now, Spike. I can't afford to show disdain for any of my loyal subjects—” She looked across the street and her wings instantly drooped. “Oh... poop into my mouth.”

        “Maybe later...”

        “Hey!” Twist slumped to a sweaty stop in front of them, her face awash with brown sugar. “How... goeth... the kingdom-thaving!”

        “Uhm, honestly, Tweak—”

        “Twitht.”

        “Yes, ahem, Twist, I haven't... uhm... done much kingdom-saving in months, my little p-pony.” She nearly wretched out the last three words. Taking a huge breath like a pearl diver, she resumed, “But I intend to get back to it as soon as... y'know... something horrible and evil attacks Ponyville!”

        “Oooh! Oooh!” Twist hopped up and down, causing nearby mailboxes to fall off their supports. “Could I help next time the Elementh of Harmony have to vanquith thomething?! I've alwayth wanted to be a vanquither! It'th on my bucket litht! Along with kithhing a moothe and getting rid of my fear of denim jeanth!”

        Twilight winced, inching away from her. “I... d-don't think I will... uh... ever need your help in vanquishing evil, Twinkie.”

        “Twist.”

        “Or that.”

        “You sure, Twilight?” Spike looked curiously at the unicorn. “What about that one time you said that Twist inspired you to make an Adept Protection Spell for you and your friends?”

        “Uhhhhh...” Twilight started instantly sweating.

        “Ya know, the one you had me fetch all of those ingredients for?” Spike shrugged with a smile, then began counting off his clawed fingers. “The eye of newt from the bog, the essence of ectoplasm from Everfree, and the one bent coat hanger?” He scratched his green spines with a twisted expression. “Funny, still don't know why you sent me to Rarity's for that last one. She seemed to have an awful lot of them—”

        Twilight bucked him blindly.

        “Ooof!” He flew off into a newspaper stand, drowning in black and white rhetoric.

        “Wow, look at the time!” Twilight grinned wider than was allowable for her jaw. “I have to go... uhm... knight somepony!”

        Twist made a face. “Who?! What'th the thpethial occathion!”

        “Somepony's... going to slay a dragon! Yup!” Twilight lifted Spike's dizzy body and planted him on his back as she galloped away. “Come on, Spike! Time to do mortal combat!”

        “Nnnngh—Drop me off at the arcade after we're done,” he vomitously slurred.

        Twist gazed at the two as they rode off in a regal dust cloud. “Hmmm... Funny, Twilight had to go knight thomepony the latht time I thaw her too. Thomething about a 'flathhing thentry' and 'de-flowerth...'” A pause. “Oh well!” She shrugged and skipped happily along the sidewalk. “I'll get to heroically lay my life down for her highnetth thomeday—”

        Just then, a blue blur shot down, instantly pummeling Twist into the dirt.

        “Ooof!” the filly grunted.

        “A pale gila monster!” Rainbow Dash hissed. Ponies gawked at her as she flashed a snarling face around. “Don't fear, ponies! I got it!” She stomped and stomped on Twist's fluffy red skull. “Die, ya poisonous little salamander! Show your meaty little sniveling face in my town and threaten my friends?! I'll make you regret the day you're mother ever spat out—” She froze in place, hovering on numb wings as her eyes went wide. “...horseapples.”

        “Unnngh... h-hi there...” The filly gurgled on her own juices as she smiled out the edge of her bruised face. “My name ith Twitht and I love you...”

        “Oh... crud, I thought you were... but that pale hide and the flashing... tongue-hair?” Rainbow rubbed her ruby eyes, wincing. “Uhhh... uhhhhhhh...” She stood Twist up, dusted her mane off, and patted her shoulder. “Stay in school, kid!” Then, with a thunderous boom, she rocketed towards the skies.

        Twist waved wearily. “Don't... d-don't you fret! Gonna thtudy hard. Gonna... g-gonna earn my... urp... P.H... A.T.B.I.T... C... ungh...” She limped back and forth, trotting a serpentine path towards home as her limp tongue slurped in and out like a seizure-stricken frog. “General... Educathion Dog... Tree... Catsh. Pantieth. Heheh... pepperminnnnnt...”











        Bruised and dirty, Twist waddled along on her lonesome.  Tucking a pair of saddlebags on her obese flanks, she walked a barren path home as she hummed pleasantly to herself.

        “Hmmm-hmmm-hmmm...”

        She hummed to herself. She kicked at a few rocks. Then eventually, quietly, she grinned to herself and rang aloud.

        “‘Oh? What’th that?’” Twist’s twitching grin widened in the wake of nothing. “‘Why, yeth! I did get it permed! What, you thought thith wath my natural mane?’ ‘But it ith tho thtriking, Twitht! How ever do you manage it?!’ ‘Well, my thithter ith the one who doeth motht of the work, even if it involveth her putting baking batter in my hair and thmacking my head againtht the oven door!’ ‘The oven door?! You mutht have a fantathtic kitchen!’ ‘Why yeth. Yeth I do. And a thick head!  Why, what a polite pony you are!’”

        She approached the front steps of a honey-brown painted house and paused halfway in the center of the garden.

She frowned. “‘Well, I do my betht to be polite! But nopony theemth to notithe!” She tilted her head aside and grinned. “‘That’th becauthe nopony ever getth clothe enough to find out! You thilly filly!’” She turned back and frowned once more. “‘You thould try harder to get notithed! Then you’ll be popular!’” A tilting; a grin. “‘Don’t be thtupid! Being popular and being good are two different thingth!’” She swiveled again, sighing, then smiling. “‘You’re right. I’m thorry.’ ‘Don’t be thorry! Be thweet’! Heeheehee!”

In spite of her felicitous giggles, she trudged slowly up to the door and flung a limp hoof forward.

        “‘You’re thuch a good friend, Twitht.’” A breathy pause. “‘You too, Tw-Twithth...’”

        With a creak, the door opened to a cramped kitchen filled with coughs, body heat, and the sound of breaking glass. A voice belched loudly over the humid bedlam. “For the last time, we can’t let this place reek of crap anymore! If we don’t keep spreading the baking flour and cake mix around, the pigs are gonna catch a whiff the next time they trot by and they’ll head straight for the lab!”

        “Don’t talk to me about red herrings, you ungrateful trampworm!” a surly stallion with a five o’clock shadow grunted from where he sat, slumped at the kitchen table. A frazzled mare scrambled around him, tossing glasses and silverware out of the drawers in some frantic search. The tile floor was covered in all sorts of litter and messy bric a brac. “The only reason I ever ended up in the slammer was ‘cuz a stool pigeon told on me!” the stallion exclaimed.

        “That’s no excuse for you to be putting off work on the lab, ya lazy old mule muncher!”

        “Hey!” The stallion shook the lengths of a newspaper in his grimy hooves. “I’m trying to get back into the swing of things! Gimme a second or two to check out the classifieds! I’m still looking for the lady of my dreams, y’know!”

        The young mare gave a splotchy grin as she pointed over the old stallion’s shoulder. “Might as well start looking for potential stallions, considering how long you were in prison, pops!”

        “Why you...What are you even doing anyways?”

        “Nnngh! I’d kill for a friggin’ cigarette! Been smoking nothing but shower stall plaster since I moved in to this goddess-forsaken Discord hole...”

        “Hey! Whatcha talking about?!” Twist hopped into the middle of the littered kitchen, grinning at her father and sister. “The bathroom?! That remindth me. I could barely thtand thtraight in the thhower last night! Hey, Thith, when are you gonna move all those bleach bottleth out of there?!”

        “Stop complaining, you little red fartball,” the mare grunted, fumbling from one kitchen cabinet to another. “You care about the shower so much, why don’t you crawl into the drain and make love to it? You’d be at home there with all the cat vomit.”

        “Heehee... You and your thilly adult thlang, thith!” Twist turned and smirked at her father. “Good afternoon, Daddy! How wath the parole officer?!”

        “I threatened to strangle him with his own jock strap...”

        “Happy ath ever? That’th tho thuper thpethial!”

        “Nnngh...” The stallion gazed lethargically aside at the mare. “Honestly, did you leave the kitchen door open? I think another raccoon’s gotten in.”

        “That’s your daughter, ya breathing pizza stain!”

        “Must have gotten into a fight, considering how bloody its head is.”

        “That’s her mane. She inherited it from that thing you married years ago. You remember? The thing with the uterus? I think she was called 'Mom?'”

        “Which thing? We talking about the Las Pegasus thing or the San Antonioats thing?”

        “Give it one good guess.”

        “Oooh!” Twist hopped, her eyes bright. “I love guetthing gameth! Lemme go firtht!” She cleared her throat and lisped, “Ith it animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

        “Ugh...” The stallion turned a page of his newspaper and muttered to the mare. “Darling, could ya? I can’t reach from here.”

        “Yeah. Sure thing.” The mare took one bounding step over and bucked Twist hard in the side.

        The filly went rolling like a pale soccerball before landing fluff-first against a china cabinet. Plates and silverware shattered all around her. She smiled upside down, breathing into her dangling tail. “Tho... mineral, then?” A loose frying pan flew across her muzzle from afar. She smiled past her bleeding nose. “Am I getting warm?”

        “You want rocks? Go bake some yourself, ya little crud.” The mare limped her bony way towards the far end of the kitchen, then gasped happily upon finding a half-full cigarette carton. “Jumping Sombra Testicles! This’ll hit the spot!” She crammed the death stick into her mouth and fumbled around for some matches. “Mmmmf... a lighter... a lighter... wh-where’s a lighter, dammit?!”

        “Go fart into the oven,” the stallion grunted.

        “You’re so full of it, you could vomit into a desert and bloom a field of roses.”

        “I think I’ll just settle for the carpet outside your room.”

        “Unngh... I hope you get arrested soon...”

        “Heh heh heh...”

        Twist rolled upright, shook the shards of dinner plates off her crown, and limped off to her room. “Well, I’d love to thtay and talk, but I’ve got homework to do! Love ya Dad! You too, Thith! I’d love ya even more if you guyth made my favorite Pancake Thinnamon Thurprithe for breakfatht tomorrowwwww!”

        The father sniffed, then raised an eyebrow. “Did you smell something just now? Something that didn’t resemble congealed urine?”

        “Mmmfff...” The sister leaned back against the only wall of the kitchen that wasn’t stained, taking a long drag of a cigarette she miraculously managed to light. “Speaking of which, I would totally kill for an Insane Colt Posse tour to come thisaway...”

        “Meh...” The stallion returned to his newspaper. “I’m laying those raccoon traps first thing tomorrow morning...”










        Twist sat at her vanity later that night, dressed in pajamas with little swirly peppermint stalks imprinted across the sleeves. She ran a brush through her mane with two delicate hooves, trying the whole time to stifle delicate yawns as they fluttered their way to her petite lips.

        “Mmmmff... ‘Twelve pageth of math homework... all done...’” She smiled proudly as she looked into the mirror. “‘Mithh Cheerilee ith gonna be tho proud of me...’”

        The redheaded reflection could only frown. “‘If that’th true, then how come the’th alwayth ending the thchoolday after you raithe your hoof?!’”

        “‘Well, you know how it ith!’” The filly waved back at the mirror while brushing and brushing at her mane. “‘Thchool ith a plathe to learn and get thmarter! It’th not thome thilly little popularity contetht!’”

“‘But that’th all that the fillieth and coltth theem to care about,’” the pony in the mirror snarled. “‘Fathe it. You’re not popular, and that’th why they don’t like you.’”

Twist’s frown reflected this time. “‘Uh uh! They tho do like me!’” She upturned her nose in Diamond Tiaraesque fashion. “‘They jutht don’t know it yet!’” Suddenly, her hoof was gripping nothing. She gasped and looked up at the flouncing fluff of red curls as the brush disappeared deeply within. “‘Ohhhhhh thhoot! That’th the third one thith week!’”

“‘Look at yourthelf! You can’t even conthentrate!’”

“‘Yeth, well, I’ve had a lot of homework to do. Gotta do well at thchool, y’know!’”

“‘And what about Daddy? And big thith? What doeth homework have to do with them?'”

        Twist found herself tightly gripping the edge of the vanity. The skin above her hooves turned red from rushing blood. Gulping, she stammered into the thin air around her as the sounds of fumbling and crashing kitchenware echoed throughout the household under the cadence of muffled shouts.

        “I jutht... gotta be happy...” Twist mumbled into the darkness of her room. “The only reathon I have to be happy ith that I choothe it...” Her pink eyes twitched alternatively as she gazed into a deep vacuum situated somewhere beyond the glass of the mirror. “If only I could make otherth choothe to make me happy too...”

        All was crickets and chaos, when at last the mirror fogged, and her voice rang out.

        “You should go to sleep, Twist.”

        Instantly, the filly yawned with a drunken smile. “‘I thould go to thleep, Twitht.’”

        The mirror shook. “All gorgeous, self-respecting redheads deserve peace and happiness.”

        “‘Mmmm... yeth...’” She deliriously limped her way towards the fluffy pink bed lying in the corner of her room. “‘All gorgeouth... redheadth... happineth... h-happineth...’”

        “Free from hatred, malice, and nightmares about denim jeans.”

        “‘Heeeeee... hmmm...’” Twist took her glasses off and snuggled into the warm toasty nook of her bed covers. “‘No... n-no more denim jeanth... no... thireeee...’” Her lips pursed one last time, and she was out like a light.

        The room was dreadfully quiet.

        The mirror vibrated in a low frequency. A reflection still lingered there, sitting on the other side of the glass, alone in a world made vaporous by the shadows that consumed the filly’s contentment on a nightly basis. A pair of lids opened, like windows to a burning world, hot ruby and full of wrath. Slowly, like a tuning fork, the vibrations of the mirror produced a low hum that grew in pitch, undulating with its otherworldly mystique. At last, there was a cacophonous sound, like a bell cracking down the center. The glowing eyes joined as one lidless orb of crimson light, a glow that swiftly consumed every square inch of the glossy pane. Then, just as quickly as the beacon began, the entire mirror shattered, littering the floor with glittering shards as a solid beam of ethereal redness wafted across the room and absorbed itself into the bed... and into the petite figure snuggled within.

        Twist merely stirred, turning over with a yawn. Her eyelashes fluttered briefly, and at that precise moment, a piggybank on the opposite end of the room exploded like a plaster vase of hot red firecrackers. The noise cleared, giving way to eerie silence.

        Twist’s pale lips smiled into slumber.










        “Ugh, you still at it, old stallion?!” the frazzled mare grunted as she poured a white plastic bottle of bubbly material into another plastic bottle of even bubblier material. She squatted before the rickety kitchen table as he continued scanning the newspaper with bloodshot eyes. “You must have been really, really bored in the slammer.”

        “I don’t get it!” Twist’s father grumbled as he planted his nose dead-center in the black and white classifieds. He munched on a bowl of dry cereal as he mumbled, “None of these mares mention a single thing of being willing to share a stable with two other ponies. I mean, what’s Equestria coming to?! No spice of life!”

        “I think the spice mixed with the sugar while you were gone.” She squinted at her meticulous work. “Speaking of sugar...”

        “Yeah, yeah... I’ll go by the store later...”

        “You better, or I’m gonna shove this bottle so far up your—”

        “Pleathed to be theeing the two of you thith fine morning!” Twist sing-songed as she waddled sleepily into the kitchen. She yawned and grinned into the beams of sunlight crossing her pale face. “Awww... ithn’t the thunrithe abtholutely gorgeouth?!”

        “Crud!” the father instantly hissed. “I friggin’ forgot to set the traps! I knew there was something festering on the other side of the house...”

        “You’re late for school, Twist,” the older sibling grumbled, fidgeting with all sorts of questionable materials. “Better get a move on...”

        “Heehee!” Twist hopped up to the kitchen, her bright smile illuminating the center of that grimy house like a holy halo. “Thilly Thith! Thchool ithn’t for another two hourth!”

        “Unngh... then what are you doing up so soon?” The mare frowned, not bothering to share a single glance with the filly. “Shouldn’t you be in bed... I dunno... practicing for death or something?”

        “But it’th tho thpectacular being alive!” Twist chirped. “I get to thhare breakfatht with the betht family ever!” She folded her forelimbs and leaned forward, her fluffy red tail wagging. “Tho?! Where ith it?!”

        “Where is what, ya little ball of boogers?”

        “Pancake Thinnammon Thurprithe!” Twist grinned even wider. “You made thome, right? Jutht like you alwayth uthed to?”

        Both the old stallion and the coat-stained mare chuckled dryly.

        The filly merely blinked at them in the early morning light.

        “Like I’m ever going to cook something for you that won’t roll over and die on its own, scampling,” the sister grumbled, licking her lips as she poured another bottle before her spasming, hollow eyes. “Now make like your mother and collapse in a gutter somewhere.”

        “Yeah, what she said,” the old stallion muttered while flipping to another page. “Oooh, shemales!”

        Twist stood still. Twist twitched. Twitch icily said, “I wath... under the underthtanding... that there would be... Pancake Thinnamon Thurprithe...”

        “Snkkkt-Ha ha ha!”

        “Heeheehee!”

        “Yeah... heheh... sure thing, ya talkin’ dishrag!”

        “Hah! Yeah! You’ll get some pancakes!” The mare’s twitching grin matched Twist’s quivering face. “And I’m Santa Clop!”

        The two adults laughed.

        Twist wasn’t laughing; twist was staring. Twin pinpricks of blood red light flickered behind her glasses as the lenses began to smoke.

        “Heheheheh...” The mare laughed and laughed until she sputtered for breath. After a deep inhale, she wiped her suddenly sweaty brow and glanced across the table at her father. “Say... is it getting hot in here? Like... really damn hot?”

        Precisely three microseconds after she uttered that, Twist’s older sister flew out the window. The reason for this may or may not have had something to do with the herculean stream of crimson lasers blasting her straight in the gut and propelling her limp flesh through the fresh hole in the kitchen wall. Birds flapped skyward and cats shrieked in horror as they scampered away. Moments later, the mare’s figure ragdolled a hundred yards away in another district of Ponyville, causing happily trotting ponies to freeze in their tracks, gasping at the figure lying mangled on the sidewalk at two blocks’ distance.

        With a gaping jaw, the stallion swiveled to face his daughter.

        Twist reflected his expression with a strobing pulse of red light.

        Whimpering, the stallion erected a newspaper shield between them. A scarlet beam instantly ripped through the paper sheets, taking his head—and his body—along with it. The father flew through three walls of the house and landed somewhere in the bathroom, kicking up a cloud of dust and chemicals. “Nnngh... d-damn... atomic raccoons,” he sputtered, and fell into powdery unconsciousness.

        In the center of the kitchen, the bright red pulsar dissipated, revealing Twist sitting upright in her chair as the table before her slowly rattled to a stop. As the dust settled, the contents of the pantry did too, littering all around the filly in a shower of boxed and bottled perishables. At long last, a can of pancake mix spun to a stop beside her shoulder.

        She looked towards it, and smiled brighter than the dawn of time. “Oooh! Well, if you inthitht!” She grasped the container and nuzzled it like a lost dolly. “I’ll jutht bake it mythelf! Heehee! You guyth are tho thoughtful!” She grinned into the smoke wafting off her glasses, betraying the slightest twitch to her foalish grin.




> Part Two:  Pepperminstrual
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        It was a beautiful day in Equestria.

        Then Twist happened.

        The front door to her home blew off its hinges, brimming with ruby-colored smoke. The rotund piece of ginger maredom frolicked through her garden, a bright smile plastered across her face, with eyes that glimmered beneath a pair of glasses completely devoid of their thick translucent lenses.

        “Mmmmm! What a thweet, thugary day!” Twist trotted and sang, “Morning in Ponyville thhimmerrrrrrth!”

        Two branches melted off a pair of oak trees as a squirrel exploded above her.

        “Morning in Ponyville thiiiiiiineth!”

        Ten pickets from her fence shattered from top to bottom, as if lopped off one after another by a sweeping sickle of crimson.

        “I know for abtholute thertainnnn!” As Twist danced her way out of her front gate, two wide ditches were carved out of the sidewalk, taking a chunk of the road along with it. “That everything ith thertainlyyyyyyy fiiiiiiine!”

        A cardinal landed down atop a parked stagecoach and tweeted pleasantly.

        Twist grinned at it, her sparkling teeth reflecting the creature. “Why, good morning to you, Mithter Thongbird!”

        Before the animal could chirp in response, its feathers caught fire. Writhing in agony, the thing fell under the filly's gaze and rolled until its charred body found a puddle of rainwater along the street curb.

        Twist kept smiling. “That'th a neat trick!”

        Humming, she bounded gaily along, her head tilted up. The clouds parted down the middle as a flock of geese dissolved in bright red mist.

        “Hmmm-hmmm-hmmm!” Twist smiled to her side and waved at the many adult ponies she passed by in the crisp morning sunrise. “Good morning everypony! Thuch a thwell day for thchool, don't you think?”

        “Meh,” a pair of mares muttered... just seconds before a charbroiled streetlamp fell over their twitching figures. “Guhkkkck... h-help... pl-please...!”

        “Pffft!” Twist rolled her eyes with a red flicker and resumed her canter down main street. “Thomepony didn't graduaaaaaate!”

        As Twist made her way to school, random mailboxes blew up one by one on either side of her. A mare stood before an apartment window, beating the dust loose from a carpet, only to have the rug burn to a crisp in her twitching grasp. Two stallions struggling to pull a wagon full of anvils suddenly flew forward as the wheels of their cart shattered completely, raining metal death down upon their screaming figures. Weathervanes flew apart, pelting the sidewalk below with cardinal arrows and metal rooster parts as panicked ponies darted for cover.

        “Dum de dum...” Twist looked aside. “Oh! Good morning, Mitth Redheart!” She waved her hoof. “Fine day for a drive, huh?”

        “Er, yes, quite...” The glum mare stood before an apartment building. She gave a limp wave, adjusted her nurse cap, and resumed pulling a gray shroud over a lime green horn. As she tried pushing the weighted gurney into the back of an ambulance, the vehicle's tires exploded, causing the entire thing to flip high and land with its hollow compartment encapsulating the shrieking pony.

        “Wowtherth!” Twist beamed as she beamed ahead. “Everpony'th tho lively thith morning!” As she smiled skyward, a burning corpse crash-landed through a fence to her side, spilling gray feathers and muffins out of a brown satchel as its hooves twitched to a cold, cold stop. “Glad it'th not jutht me!”

        Cheerilee's schoolbuilding stood in the distance like a melting red iceberg...












        “So I heard you two went into the Everfree Forest yesterday!” Snips leaned forward with a humored squint. “Did you two have an adventure or what?”

        “Pffft... Nah...” Silver Spoon rolled her eyes and adjusted her glasses. “We chickened out.”

        “What do you mean we chickened out?!” Diamond Tiara glared across the recess yard at Silver Spoon. Fillies and colts played giggling little games across the innocent playground behind them. “You're the one who insisted on telling on my dad if we didn't back out!”

        “What were you so afraid of anyways?!” Snails warbled.

        “Meh...” Diamond Tiara folded her forelimbs. “She's a zebraphobe.”

        “I am not!” Silver Spoon frowned. “I just don't think it's wise to talk to a lone wandering zebra who lives in giant tree hut in the middle of the woods!”

        “She's right, you know,” Snips said with a nod. “They'll talk your ears off with their rhyme. Plus, each and every one of them is secretly carrying a golden switchblade!”

        “Ungh!” Diamond Tiara stomped her hoof. “You guys are so equinist! Don't you even hear yourselves?” She frowned, then upturned her haughty muzzle. “Anyways, they only carry silver switchblades. Zebras can't afford gold.”

        “Yeah.”

        “That's true.”

        “You're right...”

        “Hey!” Scootaloo smiled as she and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle rolled up to the group in their wagon. “Whatcha guys talking about?”

        “Nothing that concerns worthless, flightless ostriches!” Diamond Tiara grinned devilishly like Aphex Trot. “That's what it says in the dictionary, y'know. 'Ostrich: Scootaloo, flightless, motherless, fatherless, and loveless.'”

        “Yeah!” Silver Spoon chimed in. “Right next to 'Ostracize: Scootaloo, getting rid of.'”

        “Oh yeah?!” Scootaloo removed her helmet and frowned at the fillies. “Well, you and your dictionary can just buck right off!”

        Sweetie Belle's eyes teared up. “But I dun wanna—” She began to squeak before a pale yellow hoof was planted over her mouth. “Mmmmf!”

        Apple Bloom looked over, frowning. “Scootaloo! Applejack says it ain't right to be tellin' other ponies to do the 'b'-word!”

        “But they deserved it—”

        “I dun care how mean they may be!” Apple Bloom removed her hoof from Sweetie's mouth and stripped her helmet with a proud tilt of the chin. “T'ain't a good thang to tell other ponies to... nnngh... 'buck off,' no matter how cruel or vicious they may act towards us. We gotta set an example.”

        Scootaloo rubbed her chin, then said, “But what about mules and rocky boulders?”

        “Oh, those are fine.” Apple Bloom shrugged. “Applejack says that neither of them have souls.”

        “But I bet they could afford gold!” Snails interjected.

        Everypony chuckled.

        “Heh heh heh!” The ground shook as Twist bounded into the scene. “That'th thuper funny, guyth!” A ring of grass burned around the group as she did a pale pirouette. “Oooh! My turn!”  Thud.
“Ahem...The other day, I thaw thith homeletth donkey thitting all by hith lonethome behind a bakery, and I wath all, 'Oooh! What thmellth?!' Heehee! You thee, it'th funny becauthe he'th thomething that ithn't a pony, so it'th okay to hammer that truth into each otherth' therebrumth with inthultth while he ithn't around to lithten!”

        “Uhhhhhh...”

        “Nnnghh...”

        “Yeahhh...”

        Every foal within earshot fidgeted, trying not to look the redhead in the face. All except for Scootaloo.

        “Huh...” The pegasus rubbed her chin as she stared at the burnt grass curling beneath him. “That's new...”

        “What'th the matter, ponieth?!” Twist bounced and bounced. “It'th a beautiful morning for political incorrectnetth! Oooh!” She squatted low like a kitten spotting a ball of yarn. “Tell me if you heard thith one before! Ahem...'How many changelingth doeth it take to fill a stagecoach?!”

        “Pffft. Listen, you...” Diamond Tiara glared at the filly. “Did you—like—snort your grandmother's ash tray this morning or something?!”

        “Hey! Don't thpoil the punchline!”

        “What she means is since when did you get off talking to us directly?!” Silver Spoon interjected. “The only things that deserve to share conversation with you are bats and asylum inmates.”

        “Batth?!” Twist's face scrunched up. She stared up at the sky. “But thith is morning time, thilly!” Just then, the entire sunrise flashed red and went back to blue. “Batth don't come out until it'th night!”

        This comment was punctuated by several glaring plops as over three dozen variety of fowl littered the playground, from ducks to robins to blue jays to geese to crows, and all of them smoking from beak to tail with ashen feathers. Foals paused in mid-climb on their jungle gyms, gawking at the sudden avian graveyard that the playground had become. Two preschoolers in a sandbox gawked at a bloody albatross having crushed their sandcastle.

        Scootaloo's violet eyes narrowed at the scene. “Uhm, guys? Did you see... Just now... What the f-fuzz...?”

        “Ungh, what is it, Ostrich?” Diamond Tiara lifted her spoiled nose. “You are—like—so dramatic... ppft... plbbllfft!” She spat out a tuft of bloody feathers. “Stop trying to fill the obvious vacuum of your dead family with silly—pfffbltt—hallucinations.”

        “I'm not having hallucinations...” Scootaloo then snarled. “And my family isn't dead!”

        “They just wish they were,” Silver Spoon said, sharing a communal snicker with her equally snobbish friend.

        “Heeheehee!” Twist's head rolled, and several mountains in the distance produced snowy waterfalls. “It'th funny becauthe it'th tho blatantly cruel! I had no idea how enjoyable it wath!”

        “Ugh... now she's learning things...” Diamond Tiara whispered to Silver Spoon. “See, this is why we can't allow her to speak to us. Ooooh! Hey!” She tapped the black strand suddenly sticking behind the filly's gray ear. “I love the feather accessory! It's so chic!”

        “Why thank you!” Silver Spoon smiled at the feather while a severed duck-tail fell onto her shiny flank. “I wish I thought of it!”

        “Twist?” Apple Bloom fluffed her red mane loose and readjusted her bow. “Uhm, I don't mean to pry or nothin', but are you feelin' okay?”

        “Hmmm?” Twist looked at Apple Bloom and the bow flew clear off the filly's head, landing several thousand feet away in a sizzling heap. “How do you mean?”

        Apple bloom blinked up at her own mane, then shrugged. “Oh, I dunno. Reckon yer just... more cheerful, all of the sudden...”

        “Yeah,” Scootaloo nodded, still squinting. “More cheerful than normal. Like... freaky cheerful.”

        Twist shrugged. “Can't a girl enjoy a moment while it lathtth?!”

        “What kind of a moment...?”

        “Why, thith moment right here!” Twist jumped up and down.  Thud thud thud.  Several lines of trees collapsed behind the schoolhouse, burning in red ash. “I'm not uthed to you guyth talking to me! It'th thuper thwell!”

        “Yes...” Apple Bloom fidgeted. “The cat's meow...”

        Sweetie Belle leaned in from the wagon. “Hey, uhm, can I remove my helmet now too?”

        Apple Bloom shook her head. “No, Sweetie Belle. Just...” She sighed, her ears drooping. “Just keep it on...”

        “Yaaay!” Sweetie Belle reared her hooves with joy. “I'm fashionable!” Just then, two red beams bounced off her helmet. Her eyes crossed as she fell back with a shriek. “Ackies!” Thud.

        “And thhiny!” Twist added with a giggle, her lenses smoking.

        “There!” Scootaloo pointed. “That!” Scootaloo gestured. “That there and that! Somepony tell me that they saw that!”

        “Nnngh...” Sweetie sat up, rubbing her cheek beneath her helmet. “No, it's okay. I-I always see stars after Rarity kicks me...”

        “No, I mean... that... thing!” Scootaloo flung both forelimbs in Twist's direction. “That thing that just happened! Right in front of Twist's eyes! As if they came out of Twist's eyes!”

        “Yer just seeing things, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom droned.

        “I am not—” Scootaloo went cross-eyed, shook her head, then frowned, “I mean yes! But—like—it's stuff that the rest of you can see too!” She blinked, then crossed her legs demurely as she mewled, “C-can't you?”

        “Jee, I dunno what you're talking about, Thcootaloo!” Twist scanned the horizon, and several tree tops lost their leaves in successive bursts. “But I'll keep a lookout!”

        “See?!” Scootaloo pointed. “That right there! If you guys can't see that, your eyes are bucked!”

        “Scoots...” Apple Bloom growled. “We talked about this...”

        “So sue me!”

        “Hey...” Snails was suddenly squinting at Twist too. “What's wrong with your eyes, anyways?”

        “Huh?”

        “Yeah!” Snips bounded around, peering right up into Twist's face. “Snails is right! You're totally glowing from the middle of your head and stuff! I don't like it!”

        “I don't like it either!” Snails snarled, rearing his hooves. “Bring the light closer so I can smash it!”

        “Oooh!” Twist grinned. “I could uthe another bit! You can never have too much thinnamon!”

        Scootaloo dashed in the center, holding Snails back in time to utter, “No, for real! This... is totally weird.” She turned and spoke nervously towards Twist. “You know that your eyes are glowing hot red like volcano craters, right?”

        “Huh...” Twist's eyelids fluttered, and it felt like an oven door opening and closing repeatedly before the others. “So that might explain why the think evaporated when I tried to watth my hooveth after my father and thithter flew away.”

        Scootaloo's face winced. “Your... father and sister flew away?”

        “Yup! Right after making me Pancake Thinnamon Thurprithe! My favorite!”

        “Uh...” Scootaloo cleared her throat and leaned forward. “Twist, a pony's family—like—doesn't spontaneously fly away, especially when they're earth ponies.”

        “I dunno,” Apple Bloom murmured. “It's been known to happen.”

        “Since when?”

        “Applejack says that my Ma and Pa flew away years ago...” The yellow hairs on the back of Apple Bloom's neck bristled as she frowned. “And t’ain't nothin' wrong with that!”

        “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” Sweetie Belle blurted. She instantly covered her muzzle, blushed, and cleared her throat. “I'm sorry. Rarity told me never to laugh at that.”

        “Seriously...” Scootaloo trotted across the scene. “I dunno if you've told your dad and sister, but you oughta have that looked at, Twist. And also...” Her lips pursed as she placed a hoof up against the frames. “Are the lenses gone—?” A column of smoke hissed from the contact. She brought her forelimb back and blew wildly on the burnt hoof. “Ow ow ow ow ow...”

        “Huh?! Don't be thilly!” Twist pulled the glasses off, examined them, and slid them back on. Even more waves of grass died during the process. “They're the thame glathheth that I wath born with! Er... figuratively thpeaking. Heheheh...”

        “Ugh!” Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. “Are you—like—stupid?! Your lenses are as thick as Snail's head!”

        “Haha! Yeah! As thick as my head!”

        “Everypony who's got a lick of sense in this town knows that you're legally blind without them!”

        Silver Spoon chimed in. “Only a dumb ox would prance around wearing glasses without lenses!”

        “A dumb ox who's blind!”

        “And annoying!”

        “Hah! That deserves a rump bump!  With extra rump!”

        “Oh, pleathe! I can thee ath good if not better than the retht of you ponieth!” Twist's head swiveled smilingly across the playground as she said, “Why, I can clearly thee that melting jungle gym, the filly threaming atop a thteaming thlide, and Rumble trying to make a patth at Dinky, only for hith mane to spontaneously catch fire!”

        As she said that, the colt in question screamed from afar. He galloped in circles like a living torch, tripping over a sobbing mare with a slide-shaped burn mark across her hide. This agony went on for seconds until three brave children hoisted Rumble up and carried him over to a full horse trough. They dumped him in, covering the south edge of the schoolbuilding with steam and fog.

        Twist stared proudly at the foals with an innocent smile, all the while they gawked at her and the dismally quiet scene beyond, interrupted every now and then by a sobbing voice or the flicker of flames.

        “I guess if they flew away, there's no need to explain why they haven't glided back home,” Sweetie Belle thought aloud.

        “Whoahhhhh...” Snips pointed at Twist's sporadically pulsating cranium. “She's no longer an annoying freak! She's an annoying and hotheaded freak!”

        “Wasn't she always hot headed?” Snails added. “What, with the hair that looks like the stuff that I'm not allowed to touch after that one day I played with matches and suddenly I no longer had a baby brother?”

        “Yeah! It's like she's got one big flaming eye!” Snips grinned from ear to ear. “Like—ya know—a cyclops!”

        Twist recoiled. “A thyclopth?!”

        “Even better!” Diamond Tiara grinned. “A Twistclops!”

        “Yeah!” Silver Spoon giggled. “Now she doesn't just burn our eardrums! She burns everything in between!”

        “Uhm...” Scootaloo stepped nervously backwards, her wings drooping. “Guys...?”

        “She was always like a nasty rash that could never go away!” Snips said. “Now she brings the rash to you at long distance!”

        “Heheh! Twistclops Express!”

        The air heated up as Twist's hooves grinded ever so slightly into the charred earth below. “I... am a happy... loved... pony. A thyclopth thoundth like thomething that ith neither happy nor lucky...”

        “Heehee!” The two colts formed a melodic duet. “Twistclops! Twistclops! Watch your flank, or she'll make it go pop!”

        “I'm, uh...” Scootaloo smiled sweatily, wincing. “I'm not sure if you wanna be poking fun at the thing that can make adorable colts spontaneously combust from thirty yards...”

        “Why not?!” Snips giggled, reached into a nearby satchel, and produced a pair of gold coins. “She loves earning her bits! How about it, Twistclops? Think you can eat cinnamon without burning it?”

        He was answered by a crack of thunder. A thick trench formed in the ground, carving a three-feet deep path across the schoolyard. Foals flew left and right like a pastel parting sea, and at the far end was a fresh crater carved into the red brick wall of the school's building face. Snips and Snails had been reduced to living tacks hammered into the center of this crater, their rear limbs and tails flailing as their upper bodies let loose mortified, muffled shouts from deep within the building's foundation. The entire structure shook from top to bottom, causing the newly replaced bell above the roof to ring loudly.

        This sound awoke Scootaloo and the rest from their frigid stupor, and they flinched to see Twist standing between them as a vortex of heated air settled down. A single pulsar of ruby-red light dissipated into two thin slits as she adjusted her shades, smiled, and picked up a pair of partially melted bits.

        “Why, how thoughtful of you! Yeth, boyth, I think I will enjoy my thinnamon thwirlth thith afternoon!” She finished with a sing-songy gigglesnort.

        Diamond Tiara's pale nostrils twitched. She stepped a few inches to the side so she could avoid the rising stench of her own urine.

        Just then, Cheerilee trotted out of the schoolyard. “Oooh!” she chirped. “The bell's ringing early today! That's strange... Oh well!” She shrugged and waved to the students. “Come on in, class! Time for homeroom!” A pale figure limped in through the door with charred hair. “Nice suntan, Rumble!” Cheerilee merrily said. As more ponies lurched by, she glanced aside at the two colts stuck in the crater. “Snips, Snails...” She frowned. “What have I told you about playing shoulder-deep in walls of concrete and mortar? See me after class.” She waved towards the last group as she bounced back into the room. “Come along, everyponyyy! Early bird gets the worm! And that worm is knowledge!”

        “Yayyyy!” Twist shoved the ponies inside ahead of her as her grinning face twitched. “I love wormth! Don't you?”












        “Ow ow ow owwwwwwww...” Rumble teared up and sniffled, rubbing his red welts from where he sat in the corner of the one room school.

        “And ever since the Equestrian Monarchy's Rise to Power,” Cheerilee explained, pointing a wooden ruler at a picture board displaying progressively anorexic alicorn silhouettes, “The surviving descendants of the Cadenza Dynasty have been required by law to have their wings clipped shortly after birth, due to their bodies being so thin and bony that they would—in the words of Princess Celestia herself—look ‘too damn stupid to fly.'”

        Cheerilee flipped the front page back over the easel, spun to face the class, and grinned wide.

        “Any questions, my little ponies?”

        Rumble sobbed quietly. A filly leaned forward, wincing from the burn marks on her back. Snips twitched with a bleeding nose while Snails dangled off the edge of his desk, drooling mindlessly from the pain. Quiet crying noises and stifled whimpers filled the room.

        “Uhm...” Scootaloo fidgeted, then pensively raised her hoof. “Mrs. Cheerilee?”

        “Mmm? Yes, Scootaloo?”

        “Could you... I dunno... call Nurse Redheart from Central Ponyville Medical or something?”

        “Why, what for?” Cheerilee's face stretched in concern. “Is somepony ill?”

        Scootaloo glanced left and right at the moaning, sobbing, bruised children. Just then, a flicker of ruby light shone in the corner of her peripheral vision. The tiny pegasus went pale, her wings shrinking by her side. “You kn-know what? Never mind. I'm fit as a fiddle!”

        “You sure about that? You look rather squirmy.”

        “Yeah. Just... uh... menstrual cramps! Heheh! False alarm!”

        “But... Scootaloo, haven't you had the talk with your parents? The natural estrus cycle of horses doesn’t exactly allow for—”

        “Mybloodlineispartmonkey!” Scootaloo squeaked. Twist's grinning teeth glinted out the corner of her eyes, and the pegasus shrank and shuddered even more.

        “Hmmm. Well, then. Any questions pertaining to the lesson?”

        “Oooh!” Twist leaned forward. The room heated up and cooled down with sporadic bursts of red energy as she flailed her hoof in cyclonic circles aimed at the ceiling. “Ooooh! Ooooh! Mithh Cheerilee!”

        Cheerilee looked at her... then past her. Her left eyebrow twitched, and she swiveled her gaze around the schoolroom like an army prison searchlight. “Somepony? Anypony? Would you like to ask a question about today's lesson?”

        “Mithh Cheerilee!” Twist sang and hummed. In rapid blinks, several chunks of gritty plaster fell from the chalkboard at the front of the class. “Mithh Mithh Mitthhy Cheerileeeeee!”

        “Hmmmm?” Cheerilee looked and looked. “Anypony?” Her eyes darted to a bright lavender shape. “Sweetie Belle?”

        “Nnnnngh...” Sweetie Belle froze in the middle with fussing with her helmet. Wide-eyed, she blinked, twitched, then blurted, “Crotchbewbs?”

        Cheerilee sighed, sighed, and sighed some more. As her fuzzy ears drooped, the mare swiveled her head back and flew a lethargic smile towards a glowing ruby sight. “Ahem...” Her teeth showed in a meager display of felicitation. “Yes, Twist?”

        Twist folded her forelimbs cutely in front of her and tilted her nose up. “Why are you boring all of the foalth today?!”

        The teacher blinked. “I beg your pardon…?”

        “Look at everypony!” Twist gestured towards the moaning, groaning, fidgeting lot of students. They all instantly flinched from her as if her body might explode like a horse-shaped pinata full of TNT. “They're on the edge of their theatth, but not with learning! Instead, with nauthea!”

        “Uhm, well, you know what they say...” Cheerilee chuckled nervously. “Knowledge is good for the body as well as the soul! I'm certain that if we went over today's lesson and made an outline, then the pertinence of the message would enlighten—” She blinked, crosseyed. “Why are you getting out of your desk?”

        “I know jutht what to do!” Twist skipped gaily towards the front of the class. “We need to play a game of thchool trivia! That way, not only will the lethhon be exthiting, but it will be fun too!”

        “Twist, even if a game of trivia was on my itinerary, I certainly wouldn't need you gallivanting around without permission—”

        “Nonthenthe! I'm the teacher athhithant for the day!” Twist smiled as she grabbed a chair and slid it over so that it was positioned next to Cheerilee, facing the clast. “I can help you get the thtudentth back into the thpirit of thingth!”

        “You're the teacher assistant...” Cheerilee droned.

        “Yeth, ma'am!” Twist plopped down in the chair, beaming.

        Cheerilee folded her forelimbs, twirling the ruler loosely as she glared at the foal. “Since when? I don't remember making this 'New Assistant Day,' young lady.”

        “I woke up to a tathtey dithh of Pancake Thinnamon Thurprithe thith morning! The latht time that happened wath when... when...” The ruby light died down as a pair of naked peepers blinked dully behind the rims of Twist's glasses. “'Why, when Twitht had ponieth who loved her...'” There was a lingering pause, and then the glow was back. “But thith hath been the betht morning ever! Thith mutht mean it'th my birthday!” She leaned towards Cheerilee with a cute pouty face. “You wouldn't want to let down a birthday filly'th withh, now would youuuuuu?”

        “Twist, I'll have you know that I keep a record of every important event on my calendar!” Cheerilee turned and pointed towards the paper binder in question atop her desk. “And I know for a fact that today is not ‘New Assistant Day—’”

        Just then, the calendar evaporated, and Cheerilee's entire desk along with it. Anything and everything of utility that had ever belonged to the teacher was suddenly miles away, burning in the distance beyond a massive horizontal figure eight that had been blasted through the school building's wall.

        As sheets of paper and chunks of the ceiling fluttered down over the speechless mare's mane, the four-eyed ginger cooed, “Hey, who keepth track of time thethe dayth? Theriouthly!”

        “Uhm...” Cheerilee's eyes narrowed. “My... daily planner... all... gone...”

        “Well then, clathh?!” Twist clapped her hooves, swiveled on her chair, and beamed at the class. “What thould the topic of our trivia be, hmm? Thporth?! Politicth?! Attitude Era Wretthling?! Oooh! Who here wath around to watch the Manetreal Thcrewjob live?!”

        “Hey!” Diamond Tiara angrily spat. “How about 'Twistclops Doesn't Deserve the Spotlight 101?!” Just then, her head flipped backwards and her body snapped back with it, toppling several times along an angry beam of ruby energy that shoved her—smashing—into a lunchbox counter in the back. “Ooof!”

        Several ponies held their breaths as the red beam of light gradually fizzled out.

        At the front of the class squatted a seething redhead, her glasses smoking like twin shotgun barrels. “That... had nothing to do with Bret the Hitmane Heart...”

        “Mmmmm...” Sweating profusely, Silver Spoon turned around from gawking at Diamond's smoking figure and waved her forelimb. After a pale hoof pointed at her, she smiled nervously. “H-how about that John Ceneigh?! He's pretty cool, right?!” Her desk exploded with a bright red beam. It took four full seconds for her body to stop flipping before it fell back to the earth with a sickening thunk.

        “No... he ithn't...”

        “Twist!” Cheerilee growled. “What's the meaning of this?! Don't you see what an effect this violent topic is having on the class?”

        “Unnngh!” Twist slouched as her body rolled back dramatically. “Don't you thee how hard I'm trying, Mitth Cheerilee?! Thethe kidth are jutht not into it!” She gasped with a bright smile. “Oh! I know! I have the best topic! My dad ith alwayth big on military hithtory, what with thith 'Neighzee Zombie Mode' he keepth playing everynight on hith Xbuck! Why don't we have a trivia contetht about Germaney'th invathion of Stirrup?!”

        “Young lady, now you have gone too far!” Cheerilee frowned and waved her ruler threateningly at the child. “You are in the second grade, and the Equestrian Education System expressly forbids me from teaching anything about past century war crimes to schoolfoals before their fifth year—”

        A red blast darted up and singed the ruler to a melting crisp.

        Cheerilee's pupils shrink. One blink, two blinks, and then she swiveled to grin at the class. “Who wants to learn about the Holoclops?!”

        Everypony's hooves flew towards the ceiling.















        “Uhm... mmmm...” Rumble shivered, tears running down his face as he clenched tightly to his desk under a settling cloud of dust. “The... r-reason that... Germaney lost the city of Stalliongrad... was because... mmmmm... th-they were really bad at killing other soldiers faster than they themselves could die?”

        Thunder rolled. The colt's eye quivered as a beam of red light flew directly into his face, knocking him viciously across the room so that his body fell—groaning—atop a pile of bruised and flinching foals. The wall behind the pummeled children was pockmarked with equine-shaped craters and fractured bits of shattered lunchboxes.

        “Unnnngh...” Twist groaned, rolling her eyes and causing ceiling panels above her to evaporate. “Come on, everpony! You have to do better than thith! Put thome energy into it! Be creative!” She flipped through her notecards. “Now thith next one ith a doozy! Tho put on your thinking capth—” The card immediately in her grasp blew up in smoke. She blinked. “Huh... why doeth that keep happening?” She shrugged. “Oh well. Guethh I'll jutht have to wing it... again! Heeheehee!”

        As the redhead giggled, the scant remaining ponies in the classroom trembled in their desks, beyond mortified. Chunks of the broken schoolbuilding dangled above them like ominous shadows. Snips' buck teeth bit into the edge of his desk. Scootaloo hyperventilated while Sweetie Belle gulped and Apple Bloom curled up in a golden little ball, stroking her red tail hairs and mewling, “Iwanngohommmmme. Iwannagohommmmmme...”

        “Mmmmmm...” Twist pointed. “Thnipth!”

        Snips gasped. “Oh sweet Celestia, no...”

        “How many allied tholdierth were able to retreat from the thity of Dunkanter before the Germane fortheth caught up with them?”

        “Uhm...” Snips smiled nervously, his muzzle awash with sweat. “As many as could drink tea and not get their pee turned green?”

        “Not exciting enough!” Thunder crackled.

        Snips whimpered, “OhmommyI'msosorryforeverything—” His desk exploded as he became one with a burnt skid mark along the tile floor.

        Twist's twin red spotlights swiveled onto a unicorn in a helmet. “Thweetie Belle?! Do you know?”

        “Uhm...” Sweetie Belle blinked. “Three hundred?”

        “Grrrrr!” The schoolroom lit up.

        Sweetie Belle blinked again. “Crotchbewbs?” She flew back, helmet over hooves, and slammed against a wall.

        Apple Bloom flinched, stifling a sob. She shivered as the red beam swam over her—causing her coat hairs to curl from the heat. The crimson spotlight eventually settled on the pegasus beside her.

        “Thcootaloo!”

        “Ggghhh!” Scootaloo bit her lip so hard it bled.

        “Thcootth, old pal!” Twist rocked happily back and forth in her seat. “You're a lucky, lucky filly! Cuz you get the latht quethtion of the day!”

        “Oh... well... c-cool! Heheh...” Scootaloo wiped her brow. “Shoot!” She winced. “I mean, take your best shot!” She winced again. “I-I mean, fire away—Horseapples!”

        “Oooooh... Thith had better be a thhowthtopper!” Twist turned to grin at Cheerilee. “You've got a quethtion in mind, Mitth?!”

        “Guh... guh... muh muh muh murderrrrrr...” A wide-eyed, frazzled Cheerilee stammered, quivering from beneath the hollow of a fallen school bell.

        “Alright, guetth it'th up to me again!” Twist rolled up a pair of sleeves that didn't exist and leaned forward, her eyes morphing into one red slit as she narrowed her vision on Scootaloo's fragile, feathered figure. “According to hithtorianth, why did the allieth take tho long before invading Prance to take back Stirrup?!”

        “They...” Scootaloo gulped, glancing behind her shoulders. “They... uhm...” She looked at Apple Bloom's sobbing figure, Snips' charred coat, Rumble's bruised muscles, and the undeniable pile of foals forming a moaning mountain in the back of the room. “Hooooo boy...”

        “Thcootthhhh.... Thcoot Thcoot Thcootalooooo...” A tongue licked a pair of grinning teeth beneath a conjoined red lens. “We're all waitinnnnnng...”

        “Uh... yeah... yeah... so... uhm...” Scootaloo's voice wavered as she took on a crooked smile. “So, like, the allies were all 'Wow, this is some tough war, and we really love Stirrup, but darn if it isn't full of a bunch of bleeding heart fascists and communists wanting to punch each other into next century! I think we'll just wait this out and see who gets tired of throwing stones sooner, Germaney or the Sovioats.' And, like, Josef Stallion—yeah—he was all 'Yo, dudes, what's with the delay?! My guys are over here totally busting their flanks in the goddess-forsaken snow to save Stalliongrad!' And then Winstrot Churchhay, as always, sticks his hoof in his mouth and goes 'Well, that's what you get for naming such a miserable city after yourself, jerkface.' So, Stallion gets all mad, and he's like 'Y'know, when this is all over, I'm totally taking over Ponyland and Romaneia because screw you guys!' And that's when—like—Roosepelt got up, folded up his stagecoach, and smacked the thing over Stallion's sorry skull! And it got a huge pop from the crowd of Prance resistance fighters, who weren't doing much of anything anyhow. They were all, 'Whoah, did you just see Josef Stallion take that sick stagecoach-shot to the skull?! What a work, brotha!' But it was no good, cuz, like, Roosepelt died from some lame-ass disease before Trotsdam even happened.  Total sell-out, y'know? So it was up to Trumane to clean shop, but he was too busy dropping a bomb full of parasprites on the Japaneighs cuz of what they did at Pearl Haybor. And, y'know, chalk up what happened at Hiroshimare alongside the internment camps for bad stuff done in the name of war, and it just goes to show that no matter how victorious you are, you can... uhm... still be a heartless bunch of jerks who show up late to the party... which is... uhm... why the Amareican forces were... so late... at... Normanedy?” Scootaloo ended her long-winded speech with a prolonged wince.

        Twist's face was stuck in a frozen lurch of comprehension.

        The silence broke when Sweetie Belle struggled up to her seat with an awkward clatter. “Unnngh...” She rubbed her naked head through a frazzled mane. “Heh...” She smiled tiredly at Apple Bloom. “Good thing I was wearing that helmet, huh?” A red beam slammed into her skull. “Ackies!” She fell with a thud.

        “No thpeaking out of turn!” Twist growled, then swiveled to stare down Scootaloo. “That'th a very nifty anthwer...”

        Scootaloo squee'd. “Yeah! Yeah!” She gulped and wrung her sweaty hooves in her lap. “Isn't it, th-though?”

        Twist's eyes narrowed to a burning red slit once more. “Care to thite your thourtheth...?”

        Scootaloo froze, her orange coat pale. “Cite... m-my sources?”

        “That'th right, clever girl...”

        “Uhm...” Scootaloo bit her lip.

        Suddenly, Apple Bloom broke from her stupor to blurt, “Hayrold Bloom!”

        “Yeah!” Scootaloo piped up.

        “That pony researches everythang!”

        Scootaloo slapped her desktop and leaned forward with a girn. “Hayrold Bloom, motherbucker!”

        “Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom squeaked. “What have I told you about—?”

        “Wait a thecond...” Twist glanced at Cheerilee. “Thomething'th not right. Trumane wathn't the Amareican prethident until after Normanedy, right?”

        “Muh-muh-muh-monsterrrrr...”

        “Meh. Whatever.” Twist faced forward, her eyes vibrating with a pent-up shot of ruby fury. “Thtill too boring in my book...”

        “Oh my goddess...” Scootaloo pointed wildly over the redhead’s shoulder. “Cheerilee's got a denim purse!”

        “Where?!” Twist spun, and the far end of the schoolroom exploded along with an eruption of a lone mare's horrified screams. “That'th only two degreeth away from jeanth!”

        “Nnngh!” Scootaloo picked up the first blunt object she could find and tossed it towards the front of the room.

        “Weeeeeeeee!” Sweetie Belle deliriously squealed before her numb body collided with the source of the crimson outburst. She and Twist went rolling while the optic blast spun like a bastard sword, cleaving blocks of red brick and mortar loose at every angle.

        “Let's go! Let's bucking go!” Scootaloo rushed over and grabbed Apple Bloom.

        “Scootaloo, for the last time—” Apple Bloom began. A roar lifted in the corner, like the oscillating growls of an angry phoenix, and huge beams of flesh-melting light flew their way. “Buck!” Apple Bloom ineffectually shrieked.

        “Buck!” Scootaloo retorted. She dragged Apple Bloom by her mane, hoisting her over shattered desks, fallen plaster, and the countless bodies of foals. “Buck buck buck buck!”

        “Buck!”

        “Buckkkkk!”

        Both fillies threw themselves out into the schoolyard. They lost balance and collapsed amidst crumbling playground pieces. The whole earth was shaking. Scootaloo's wings blurred, thrusting her forward. Apple Bloom could scarcely regain her balance.

        “Buck buck buck it all!” Scootaloo hopped onto her wagon.

        “Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom whimpered, crawling like a pathetic infant towards the vehicle and its tow. “Not so fast!”

        “Buck, Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo shouted over the bedlam, fastening her helmet as squirrels and lizards melted around her. “Get the buck into the wagon!”

        “But we left Sweetie Belle behind!” Apple Bloom yelped. The death rattle of cockroaches and cats sounded off beyond the crumbling educational edifice just past her twitching hoof-ends. “We can't just leave her behind!”

        “She knew what she was bucking getting into!” Scootaloo roared, waving with her hoof. “Now get your bucking flank in the bucking wagon!”

        “But... but...” The building collapsed as Twist rose out of the dusty heap like an angel of death, spewing her frothing sight across the melting grasslands.  “Buck!”

        “Fweeeeeguhhhuuthhhh!”

        “Buck me!” Apple Bloom shrieked.

        “What did I bucking tell you?!” Scootaloo howled, already pedaling. “Buck! We're all bucking dead! Get in the bucking wagon!”

        “Oh for buck's sake!” Apple Bloom broke into a gallop and flew herself forward. She grabbed onto the rear of the wagon just as it reached its top speed. “Nnnngh!” She flailed, her rear hooves dragging through the dirt. “Scoots! Slow down, ya orange buck!”

        “What did I bucking tell you just a bucking second ago?”

        “It's not my buckin’ fault she was a buckin’ eyebeam laser demon child! Nopony could have guessed that for buck-all!”

        “Shut your bucking face and get in the bucking wagon!”

        “What do you think I'm buckin’ tryin’ to do here?!”

        Waves of red madness sliced through the road, spitting up dirt and tearing trees to angry splinters.

        “Gaaah!” Scootaloo shrieked, swerving left and right as the scooter's tire screeched. “Buck!”

        “Buck!'

        “Meennnguuuttttttth cruel evil ponietttttthhh!”

        Post boxes and rain ditches and park benches exploded left and right.

        “Buck buck buck!”

        “Buck me in the eye!”

        “Aaaaah! Buck!”

        The fillies passed by a decrepit old horse who paused in shoveling manure by the side of the road to tip his moth-eaten hat at them. “Nope! It's ‘Buster,’ actually!”

        “Buck!”

        “Buster!”

        “B-Buck!  Buck!”  Scootaloo screeched to a stop. She pointed towards the burning sky while Apple Bloom's body rolled across the wagon. “Buckkkkkk!”

        “No, Buster!”

        “Bucking look!”

        “Buster Colton, pleased to meet you—” A beam of red laser energy ignited the stallion from behind. “Oh buck!”

        Apple Bloom and Scootaloo shrieked. “Buckin’ Hell!”

        The stallion collapsed as he vomited up his melting entrails. “Bnnnngrllrrrgg-Buckkkkkkkk my liiiiiife!” The manure caught fire behind his corpse, sending a smoldering plume of death and stench high into the air.

        “Bucking A!”

        “Buckin' gun it, Scoots!”

        “Buck this place!” Scootaloo kicked against the ground and glided off as Apple Bloom clung to her, sobbing. “Buck buck buck it all!”

        “Please, Princess Bucking Celestiaaaaaaa...” Their voices sang like sirens over the melting tree tops as the pair finally outraced the spreading waves of purgatorial ruby heat seeping after them.

        “Ohhhhh buck! Oh buck buck buck!”












        “Buck...” Apple Bloom sat dazedly in the corner of the Sweet Apple Acres farmhouse, her eyelids layered with the dried crust of countless tears. “Buck... b-buck... buckbuckbuck... buck... buckitall... buck... buck...”

        Sighing, Applejack continued notching across a pad of paper with a pencil. “One hundred and ninety-eight... one hundred and ninety nine... two hundred.” She slapped the notepad shut. “Alright there, lil' missy.” She planted a hoof on her flank and frowned at the catatonic filly. “That settles it! Yer officially doin' morning chores for the rest of the year! Now I hate bein' this cruel to ya, but we've had this conversation tons of times!”

        “Applejack!” Scootaloo grunted as she galloped across the house, stacking buckets and tables and other bits of heavy furniture against the front door of the place. “Buck your apples-backwards tradition and help me board up this place!”

        “Whoah nelly!” Applejack held Scootaloo back by her tail. “Now you jus' wait a second, small fry!”

        “B-buck...”

        “Two hundred and one. Ahem. Who died and gave you the right to march into my house and toss all my belongin's around?” Applejack binked. “Besides yer parents, that is.”

        “This is serious, AJ!” Scootaloo hopped in place, her mane and coat frazzled. “They're dead! They're all dead!” She hyperventilated and squeaked, “Miss Cheerilee, Snips, Snails, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, that shoe that likes to sing all the time!”

        “Pinkie Pie?”

        “No, the other shoe.”

        “Ohhhh. Sweetie Belle.”

        “Right.” Scootaloo gulped and nodded. “Something bad is happening to this town, and it's stronger than anything I've ever lived through seeing! I mean it! This is bigger than Nightmare Moon! This is bigger than Discord! This is bigger than that stupid she-bug thing that crashed a wedding for a stupid monologue and then got totally trashed by the power of lameness!”

        “What, Scootaloo?” Applejack trotted forward and rested a reassuring hoof on the filly's shoulder. “What is it? You can tell me!”

        Scootaloo took a deep, deep breath then blurted, “Twistclops!”

        Applejack stared blankly at her.

        The filly's face contorted with disbelief and disappointment. “AJ?! AJ, come on! Are you deaf! I just said—”

        “And I done heard ya, sugarcube...” Applejack nervously adjusted the brim of her hat. “It's just that... uhhhh...”

        “Well...?!”

        Applejack smiled nervously, her cheeks reddening. “Well, if ya ask me, every pony in this world deserves feelin' good once in awhile, and how they... uhm... go about gettin' to feel that pleasure is their business, and none of ours, ya reckon?”

        “Huh...?!” Scootaloo blinked. Eventually, she went cross-eyed, then shook her head with a frown. “Oh for the love of—No! I mean Twist's shooting a big beam of angry red light out of her eyes at the flick of a hoof! I don't understand it one bit, but she's dangerous, I tell ya! She's already iced half the children in this town! It was… t-totally metal.  But still!  Might as well say 'goodbye' to Ponyville's future by this point!”

        “B-bucking bucks...”

        “Ahem... Two hundred and two...” Applejack looked from Apple Bloom back to Scootaloo. “Sugarcube, let's be honest for a moment here. Don't y'all be forgettin' that honesty is my bag, now.”

        “That's why I need you to totally believe me on this—”

        “But Twist is the sweetest, most darlin', most honest-to-goodness pony in these parts!” Applejack said with a smile. “Ya sure ya ain't lettin' your imagination run wild?!”

        “You've got to be plot-snotting me!” Scootaloo gasped, then grinded her hooves against the floorboards with a snarl. “You mean you actually liked this pony before all this crud happened?!”

        “Well...” Applejack leaned back, fanning herself with her heat. “I gotta admit, I was a touch bit beside myself with anger when I found out about all the bullyin' she did along with Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara.”

        Scootaloo went cock-eyed. “H-huh?!”

        “Though, I'm just plum happy y'all made up and made her an honorary member of yer little Cutie Mark Capsizin' club thang...”

        “I... it... but... Snkkkt...” Scootaloo banged her orange skull several times, hissing. “Friggin' grownups!”

        “What...?” Applejack's eyes narrowed. “We ain't talkin' about the same redhead?”

        “Heck, no!”

        “Uhm... Well, this is mighty embarrassing...” Applejack blushed. “Which one of them lil' critters is 'Twist' again?”

        Scootaloo trotted forward.

        Applejack leaned down.

        The tiny pegasus whispered into the mare's ear.

        Applejack nodded... and nodded... and then went ghostly pale. Slowly, an iron-wrought frown crossed her face. “Grannnnnny!” her voice boomed against the house's foundation as she protectively flung Apple Bloom's limp figure over her backside. “Fetch me my rifle!”